


Telepathy

by Donaji25



Category: The Big Bang Theory (TV)
Genre: F/M, Friendship/Love, Psychic Abilities, Psychic Bond, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-23
Updated: 2015-04-27
Packaged: 2018-03-08 19:06:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3220088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Donaji25/pseuds/Donaji25
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Amy was starting her scanner when it happened, a lightning hit the building and the lights went off. For a moment every one in the room looked outside the window, the lights came back a few seconds later. Little did they know the changes that this little accident would brought to their lives, specialy to Sheldon and Penny. Shenny story, probable change of rating</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to a short circuited fanfic. This story has been rolling in my head for a while, maybe I can shape it in something good. I don’t know how long it would be, but I hope you enjoy it enough to keep me going, also I’m no scientist, so nothing related to science here is accurate, I’m guilty of Shenny shipping, just so you know where this is heading to. To those coming from a previous story, welcome back, you have an idea of what to expect, remember the teaser I made a while ago?
> 
> Please read and review, I would love to hear any suggestions, critics or ideas you can give me to improve and make this fun. You know what the usual disclaimer is, we’re in a fanpage after all, so I’m just adding a new bit to the fandom that is not mine in any way, only the crazy adventures I made up for them XD. Updates about this story will be a bit longer, because I still have to finish the previous one (“Not a secret anymore”) and I would like to finish it before diving in this one, I’ve been already working on the second chapter so no worries, just be patient.
> 
> Now, I’ll leave you to this crazy idea, depending on what you think (as it was the earlier case) it could be a long story, or else I can make it short (but I’m not really good at making short stories)… I will gladly take any comment and tomatoes you want to throw at me, though I’m not really fond of salads (lie), just be honest I like constructive critic, I learn from it.

**1\. - Electric wave.**

 

It had been a rainy season, but the weather in California was always warm, so the cloudy sky was just a promise of another stormy night. Inside the apartment 4A, home of a pair of very particular scientists, the usual gang was sharing dinner.

 

The TV was on, but no one was really paying attention as Amy and Bernadette were explaining to the group and experiment they had developed and wanted to get their friends to agree and take part of it.

 

“Its already being tested in animals, the drugs that Bernie brought were completely useful, and the brain scans that I preformed prove it harmless.

 

“It would bring us closer as friends, on a very different level, there’ll be not only our friendship and common likes, and it will make us understand a little why we like specific things by connecting our minds for just a few minutes.

 

The group shared concerned glares, not because it was a completely unsupervised experiment, and the only people that knew how it worked and were involved in it were Amy and Bernadette, and they were also willing to be part of the same experiment, also no body wanted to share their minds freely anyway, and there was certain theoretical physicist with a very singular mind there.

 

The girls had showed them the results of their experiments on a computer; let them know how it had worked with the monkeys that Amy had got to practice the whole thing, and how the effects of what they were actually proposing to do have just lasted a few minutes. The original intent of said experiment was to help a pair of monkeys of different species to get along, even when their species where known for their lack of sociability with each other. The results were great, as they had managed to create a friendship bond between the animals with the mind sharing experiment. The idea that with a group of people that were already friends, the bonds between them would get stronger after the experiment, had make them wonder what it would make to their group.

 

But the gang was not sure that was a great idea. And the fact that their two friends had already set a scanner and had a group of pills for each one, was not really helping, it was difficult to find something to say after all the material the girls had showed them. The surprise was that not even Sheldon was making any comments, maybe because he was the only one paying some attention to the show on the TV, although he was frowning as if considering his answer.

 

“Look Ames, Bernie” said Penny glaring at the pills on the coffee table. ”I don’t think we need to do this, we’ve been friends for many years, our friendship is very strong already without doing any of this.” Leonard, Raj and Howard relaxed after Penny’s words. Leonard was going to say something else to settle the argument when Bernadette spoke.

 

“We know that” said Bernadette moving to sit next to Howard ”it might not even have any visible effect on us, but in the long run, it could help us understand… most of Sheldon’s quirks, maybe.”

 

The aforementioned looked at her, and then at their friends.

 

“Why are we still discussing this? We all know it’s not a good idea, and none of us is going to do it, could you please drop it and change the topic of conversation? This movie is not good and I need you to vote so we can see something else.”

 

Amy and Bernadette exchanged a sad look; Amy was about to say something to her boyfriend, but not wanting to had his wife in that mood for the rest of the night Howard said.

 

“How about this? We choose a movie, and while watching it we let them do the experiment, maybe that way we won’t even notice what they’re doing, they are only checking brain waves, if as they say there will be no visible effect on us, it’ll be over before anyone can complain about it.” That made Bernadette brighten a little and Amy smiled gladly at him.

 

“That could actually work.” Said Leonard this time, then he looked at Sheldon. His friend was still frowning, but then turned around to see his friends.

 

“Fine. But I want to be the last one to partake in this so called experiment. Also know that if this experiment distracts me from the movie, you’ll get a strike.” He said this time aiming his eyes to the proposing scientists. “Now, what movie should we see? I choose Tron.”

 

That led to a debate between the guys, while Amy and Bernadette set to work, sticking electrodes to Raj and Howard and handing them a pill to start their experiment with them.

 

* * *

 

Later in the night, while the characters of the movie were talking about programs and users (of course they sere watching Tron), the girls had already made a big part of their experiment, and were now putting the last electrodes to Sheldon, and thunder roared outside and a heavy storm started.

 

Penny was also the last on the line while proving the experiment, something that she already had cataloged as boring, because it had been more talking that actual … something; nothing interesting had happened while they connected her mind to the others in the room, though with Leonard she had felt something weird, and she had opted to think that was because they had been a couple for a while.

 

Amy was starting her scanner when it happened, a lightning hit the building and the lights went off. For a moment every one in the room looked outside the window, the lights came back a few seconds later.

 

The moment the light came back the scanner made a weird noise and Penny and Sheldon blanked out with the sudden electric charge striking them. The group moved fast then and started taking off the electrodes from their friends and turning the scanner off. Leonard, Howard and Raj tried to wake their friends, making them react a few moments later.

 

With a hand to his head Sheldon tried to stand up, everyone was looking at them. Sheldon gave up and sat again at the insistent pain in his head. Penny might have felt as him because suddenly she was asking for silence.

 

“What the hell just happened?” She asked looking at her friends.

 

Amy and Bernadette were pale and had tears in their eyes.

 

“It was the black out…, the power…, I’m sorry Penny, Sheldon, we…” Amy started to cry.

 

“It was an accident girls.” Said Howard trying to calm the group. “It’s not your fault. And look at them, they’re fine, it could have been any of us.”

 

Every one nodded. But then Sheldon spoke.

 

“Accident or not, this is unacceptable, Amy and Bernadette you are banished from this apartment for the following week, you could have damage my brain, and I don’t need to remind you, mine is one of the greatest of our generation.”

 

“But Sheldon…”

 

“Please be quiet” said Penny holding her head in her hands. “, I have a terrible headache; just… just go with it, it will help us calm down. I’m sure Sheldon will be in a better mood by that time, and you’ll be spared to deal with him. Look at the bright side.”

 

Sheldon was also holding his head, and didn’t say a thing to that comment.

 

“She’s right” said Leonard. “; don’t feel offended, you know Sheldon.” Howard, Amy and Bernadette nod and then make to leave. Taking the still smoking scanner with them

 

Raj, helped them, leaving Penny, Sheldon and Leonard at the apartment. Leonard went to the first aid kit and gave his friend and girlfriend an aspirin. Sheldon then excused himself and went to his room.

 

“Come on Penny, I’ll go with you to your apartment to see that you’re doing fine.”

 

“Thanks Leonard.” Said Penny standing up and letting him help her. It didn’t take long, once in her apartment, for her to fall asleep.

 

* * *

 

It was early in the morning when Penny got up, it was unusual in her to be up at this hour, but she wasn’t feeling sleepy anymore, so she went to take a quick shower. Once she was already dressed and was about to make some breakfast she heard a knock on the door.

 

“Coming!” She said and left her glass of milk on her table. She opened the door to find a very worried looking Amy.

 

“Oh, thank god Penny! I wouldn’t know what to do if you hadn’t answered the door again.”

 

“Why…? When haven’t I answered the door lately?” Said Penny moving so Amy could enter the apartment.

 

“Sorry, I might need to explain some things first bestie.”

 

“I hope it doesn’t take long, I woke up early and I’m trying to take advantage from that to get early to work.”

 

“Penny,” Said Amy, her expression going serious, “you are excused from work today.”

 

“No, I’m not.”

 

“Yes, you are. Penny have you checked anything else apart from the clock today?”

 

“Not yet.” Penny looked suspiciously at Amy; her friend was looking at her as if expecting her to explode or something. “Look, if you are worried about what happened yesterday, you shouldn’t. I’m feeling fine. There’s nothing to be worried about. If anything Sheldon is still going to be angry.”

 

“Penny, listen to me. You were asleep the whole weekend, that’s why I called your job and said you were indisposed.”

 

“What are you talking about? It’s Saturday Ames.”

 

“Penny, believe me, it’s Monday. You spent the whole weekend asleep, it was impossible for me or Bernadette to wake you up.”

 

“Wow” said Penny trying to understand what had happened, just to make sure Amy was right she checked her phone, there were several missing calls, and text messages, for Amy, Bernadette and Leonard “I never thought I would be able to break my own record, once I slept for 22 hours, but this is amazing. Still nothing to worry about, and by the way, thanks for calling my boss.”

 

“My pleasure. But, Penny, the thing is that you weren’t the only one sleeping through the weekend. Leonard was the one to call us, he said that he was really worried about you, that you were not answering the door, then he said something about waiting a while because it was still before eleven, whatever that means, but he also said that Sheldon was sleeping as well, he didn’t sounded worried because of that, but he did said that it was unusual for him to sleep that long. We don’t know why this happened, or if it has any other effect, I’m quite relieved that you were just sleeping and not…That’s what worried me in the first place, I’m really terribly sorry about what happened I don’t like being banished.”

 

“Don’t worry Amy; this week is going to end faster than you think, look how easily I skipped two days. But speaking about those two, have you checked on them already?”

 

“No, I came here first, Leonard said that he didn’t want to invade your privacy by entering here in the morning in case he scared you, so he asked me to come and check on you today, but he also said he was going to call me if there was any change.” As if on cue Amy’s phone started ringing. “It’s him.” She said standing up and answering. “Leonard? Yes, she is… Really, have you explained what happened? ... Right, could you please ask if I can…?

No… but…! … Ok, thanks Leonard.” Amy turned to look at Penny. “Sheldon woke up. I still can’t go into the apartment though.” Amy looked really hurt by that. “So, I guess I’ll get going, usually you were asleep so I didn’t ask for any permission at work, I’ll call Bernie maybe she’ll come later to see you. Do me a favor and speak with Sheldon, please.”

 

“Don’t worry Ames, and thanks for coming, I’ll call you and tell you how he is doing later as well” Amy smiled and then went to the door; she wiped her eyes and then said good bye.

 

Penny stared at the door across the hall, a weird feeling invading her, before walking decided towards it.

 

* * *

 

In the apartment next door things for Sheldon were almost the same. He woke up, made his morning vocalizations, and then walked towards the bathroom to take his morning shower, after getting dressed and ready for another Saturday morning watching Doctor Who, he walked into the kitchen and started preparing his breakfast, he heard someone knocking on Penny’s door and felt pity for the poor soul that dared awake her before eleven.

 

He walked towards the coach and sat in his spot, a feeling of concern settling inside him, but he wasn’t aware of anything to be worried about, so he turned on the TV, and waited for the show on the TV to end when Leonard rushed to the living room tying his robe.

 

“Sheldon! You’re awake!” He said looking at his roommate with a big smile.

 

“Of course I am; when have you know me as a sleepwalker Leonard? Now hush, this show is taking precious time from Doctor Who, I should call the BBC broadcaster to fix that.” Leonard sighed in frustration.

 

“There’s nothing wrong with the BBC channel Sheldon. Listen, I have something to tell you, and I have the feeling that you are not going to believe me.”

 

“That’s still yet to be seen. Tell me.”

 

“There’s nothing wrong with the BBC schedule because they don’t air Doctor Who on Mondays.” Said Leonard tentatively, hopping that his genius roommate would catch the idea.

 

Sheldon’s look was of deep thought, and then he smiled widely at him. “Oh, I see! Aren’t you missing the ‘Bazinga’ there? This must be a joke, today it’s Saturday Leonard. I thought you were well past learning the days of the week.”

 

“No, Sheldon,” he said taking his mobile phone out of his gown and handing it to Sheldon “today is Monday; you’ve been asleep since Friday night.”

 

Sheldon took Leonard’s phone and checked the date; he then looked for his mobile phone and checked again. He looked quite surprised because of it. “This can’t be possible. I’ve never slept this long before. Dear Lord! I have to go and get dressed for work, and I missed laundry night. Leonard! Why did you allow this to happen?”

 

“Believe me Sheldon. I did try to wake you up. I even talked to Howard and Raj into trying. None of us was successful. But, there’s also Penny. She slept all weekend as well.”

 

“Yes, but that’s understandable, that woman likes to sleep until eleven in the morning, it’s not really a big surprise to know that she slept all weekend. But this had never happened to me before.”

 

“I’ll call Amy. She was worried sick with this, ever since what happened on Friday. She might be at Penny’s right now…”

 

“It was their stupid experiment Leonard. Amy and Bernadette’s, the electric wave must have changed something in my brain and that’s what caused me to sleep that long, at least it had no further effects, because I feel perfectly fine otherwise.”

 

“Hello Amy? Are you with Penny? Is she awake? ... Sheldon awoke too… Yes I’ve told him what happened already... come to the apartment? ...” Sheldon shook his head in denial to Amy’s request. “Sheldon says you can’t. Listen Amy, I’ll talk to him and I will keep in touch so you’re updated, okay? Bye.”

 

Sheldon stood up and walked towards his bedroom. “Sheldon where are you going?”

 

“To my room. I cannot go to work with my Saturday’s clothes.”

 

“No, Sheldon, sorry, I didn’t knew when you were going to wake up, so I called the school and told them that you were not going today.”

 

“What did they say?” Leonard lifted and eyebrow and followed him with his gaze.

 

“Quoting ‘Ok, he can have the whole week free instead, he’s been delaying his vacations again. Please tell him’.” Sheldon was about to answer to that when he noticed he was already walking towards the door, he grabbed the door knob in the exact moment when a knock came from the other side.

 

Leonard and Sheldon shared a weird glance; Sheldon opened the door to reveal Penny.

 

“That was weird” said Leonard, both Sheldon and Penny nodded. Penny entered the apartment and stood next to Sheldon. “Look,” said Leonard “I have to get ready for work, none of use were aware of when you two were going to wake up, anyway, you know you can call us if you need us, but I think you should visit a doctor. I hope you don’t have any trouble in taking him Penny.”

 

“No, it’s fine actually.” The awkwardness of the moment was palpable, even though there was nothing weird about the scene. “I’ll take him, go to work and we’ll call you if we need anything.”

 

“Right” said Leonard, looking at them as if afraid of what would happen if he leaved them alone. He walked backwards towards his room, almost tripping with the step, before turning around and leaving.

 

Sheldon and Penny looked at each other, an almost static tension forming between them.

 

“Breakfast…” they said at the same time. Penny covered her mouth.

 

“I was going to have breakfast. Have you already eaten Penny?” said Sheldon feeling the urge to cover his mouth as well. Penny shook her head, her hands firmly on her mouth but Sheldon poured another glass anyway.

 

Sheldon moved robotically to the kitchen looking for the orange juice he was going to take with his now ‘not perfect’ cereal near the couch; he was fully aware that Penny was a few steps behind him, something very weird was going on, and Penny could feel it too. They tried to act uncomfortable until Leonard left, both drinking from their glass of juice the moment he walked out and placing it over the table before facing each other again.

 

“We should arrange and appointment with the doctor for later” again they said that in unison. “But I doubt any doctor would be able to understand what’s going on.” Both nodded at their sudden coordinated ideas. Penny lifted her right hand and Sheldon did that as well. Sheldon then showed his tongue in a mock attempt, only to be mirrored by Penny. “This shouldn’t be possible.”


	2. Complications

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sheldon and Penny are now in a very strange situation, what kind of problems will this bring? How are they going to act from now on?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! *takes another bite of her tomato salad* Yes, I got tomatoes for the first chapter *winks and waves to the man selling tomatoes outside the window*, but don’t worry, they were not about the story being bad or anything (thank god), they were just… not important for the plot. I want to thank you for your support, it’s great that you have liked it and that you want to read more about this crazy idea of mine (you know, just the idea… sadly nothing more than that). Also I’m so sorry for delaying this more than expected, I wasn’t feeling at all well last week and an aching head is not something I can tolerate while writing in front of a bright screen, I talked to my (doctor) father, he gave me medicine, I’m better now (just so you know, no worries).
> 
> With that said let’s go to the story, there are a few notes I should make: first italics inside dialog are thoughts, I’m sure I don’t need to tell you why they’re appearing there. Second I’m just getting used to this writing style and English is not my first language so please forgive my mistakes, I try not to have them, but I’m only human (also I don’t have a beta). Third you must know that I have nothing against any character of the series, so there will be no harassment to any of them from my part. Hope you like it, read, enjoy and if you want to leave a comment it will be highly appreciated (tomatoes are welcome too).

**2.- Complications**

 

Sheldon’s eyes narrowed in suspicion, there was something really strange going on. He ran a hand through his hair, and to his surprise Penny did too, her long blonde hair getting messy by the action. She was looking at him with a perfect reflection of what he supposed was his own expression. She then moved facing the living room, and he did too, they both moved one step. They shared another concerned look.

 

In an attempt to act before the other Sheldon crouched… only to be mirrored by Penny, suddenly feeling the urge to laugh he smiled, Penny giggled. In tandem they stood up again and walked towards the couch, facing each other Sheldon sat down on his spot and Penny in the space right next to him.

 

“So…” he said, trying to address the problem at hand. “Do you think we should go to the hospital or just for a quick check up at the clinic?”

 

“I don’t know Sheldon. I don’t think it’s a good idea” Sheldon stood up, this time Penny stayed in her seat on the couch.

 

“Let’s analyze the facts. On Friday night we were both connected to some electrodes, wired to a brain scanner and a computer, the lights went off and then they came on again striking us. We both had also swallowed a pair of pills that Bernadette provided, and I assume those were experimental drugs, that allowed our brain waves to synchronize, thus helping them with their ‘study’.” He said walking around the couch and running a hand over his mouth… Wait… there was something important that _wasn’t_ happening there… “Penny. Are you hearing my voice? Where you listening to what I said?” He asked, this time feeling panic run through his veins.

 

“Of course I did. This is affecting us both; I want to know what happened.” Sheldon’s heart beat increased, feeling his hands starting to shake he walked once again to his place on the couch.

 

“Penny, look at me” He said placing both hands over his mouth, the blonde looked at him with a weird expression, she also looked nervous, but Sheldon didn’t want to make further deductions. “Can you still hear what I’m saying?” He asked, his hands still pressed to his mouth, his eyes wide. Penny’s expression told him every thing he needed to know, his breathing became ragged.

 

 _“How…? How can I hear you with your hands over your mouth? Sheldon what’s happening?”_ Asked Penny’s voice in his head – yes, his head, she hadn’t opened her mouth either-, he shook his head, not sure of how to react to this discovery.

 

 _“Let’s think this through. Amy and Bernadette gave us those drugs to study our brain waves as friends, since it involved the group and we’ve been friends for a while it’s not difficult to have some similar reactions when we’re together. Now, the electrodes were stimulating our brain in a subtle way, pulsing every now and then. The lightning on the other hand turned off all the light.; if I am not mistaken, the brain scanner resets itself every time its needed, so that the operator can place specifications, the charge coming from the power up when the light came back made it give us a stronger charge than intended.”_ Penny moved her hands and fingers, and approached one finger to his arm, feeling the static that made Sheldon’s arm hairs to stand, his eyes focused on that and when Penny touched him a spark made them jump.

 

 _“Ok, let’s say I understand. What does that mean?”_ She asked looking at him.

 

_“Seems like our brains are connected with each other.”_

_“Do you think it’s going to pass? I mean… We’re not going to stay like this forever, are we?”_ Sheldon looked to the floor, rubbing his arm where the static spark had been.

 

 _“I don’t know Penny. It’s been the whole weekend. By now all the static should be gone; we shouldn’t be having any secondary effects to start with because the drugs probably were not having effects on Saturday morning. And obviously we shouldn’t be able to do what we are doing right now.”_ He looked at her again.

 

_“Oh, I’m sure we shouldn’t. But what is this? How was it called… telecomunications… teletrans…  ?”_

_“Telepathy. The ability to communicate thoughts without speaking or writing. Speaking... Sorry,_ thinking _of which, we should really visit a doctor, let somebody know about this…”_

Penny shrugged in her place. _“Maybe, but don’t you think they’ll take us for studies? I don’t think I want to spend weeks, secluded in a hospital room, with all the needles, probably the blood and all the things they are going to try to experiment on us. Can’t you do the study? I mean, I trust you, I know you wouldn’t make me go through a painful or uncomfortable study, and I’m sure this is going to be a huge discovery. The first real prove of telepathic communication. Do you really want someone else to do it? Think about how all the experiments could damage_ your _brain.”_ She knew she was manipulating this, but if they’re brains were really connected then Sheldon knew it already, and she was terrified of what that could mean if someone else found out about it. The physicist looked at her, his knowing gaze telling her that he could perceive her intentions, but her argument had worried him a bit.

 

 _“We still need to learn to control this. We are highly synchronized; obviously you noticed our coordinated movements when we were not ‘talking’ like this. So let’s try to act like individuals and act normal, or this is going to be difficult to manage at work…”_ Penny nodded and opened her mouth.

 

“I should head back to my apartment then…” She said, and stood up, rolling her eyes when Sheldon also stood up with a sigh. With a huge effort Sheldon sat down again, crossing his arms over his chest. Penny turned around, also making a conscious effort to walk away.

 

* * *

 

“Have any of you received a call from Sheldon?” Asked Leonard carrying his tray towards the table where Howard and Raj were waiting for him.

 

“Not really” said Howard. “You don’t think something really serious happened to them that night, do you? Because Berny has been really worried, she fears that Sheldon complains to the company and they fire her; she was also afraid of them going to the doctor, that kind of experiments, unsupervised and everything tend to give problems, she thought it wasn’t a good idea.”

 

“I know. I tried to tell them that maybe the best was to ask Amy and Bernadette to check on them, but this morning when Amy called Sheldon made it clear that the banishment was still in place. I could only hope that Sheldon’s germ phobia and his tendency to exaggerate medical problems keeps them out of the actual hospital or make the doctor think he’s being dramatic again.” Said Leonard, starting to eat his sandwich; Howard and Raj shared a glance and nodded.

 

“Did Amy say something about Penny?” Asked Raj taking a sip of his soda. “We know how Sheldon tends to exaggerate every thing, but she’s not one to complain when something is wrong. I’ve known her for years and I can hardly remember more than two times when it was obvious she was sick. Did any of them have symptoms to worry about?”

 

Leonard thought for a moment on the weird interaction between Penny and Sheldon that morning, the weirdest part of it had been when he had asked Penny if she could take him to the doctor and both Sheldon and Penny had answered at the same time; he thought it had been a coincidence; neither of them seemed to have noticed. However there was awkwardness, something that hardly ever happened with them, if anything Penny was Sheldon’s best female friend, maybe there was something… nah that would never happen.

 

He shook his head. “Other than Sheldon predicting when Penny was going to knock on the door (you know, Vulcan hearing and all) and they way they both said something at the same time, nothing really extraordinary or to worry about. At least not a medical condition that the girls should worry about.”

 

“They said something at the same time?” Asked Howard.

 

“Yes, but that was all, I was just asking Penny I she would find it troublesome to take Sheldon to the doctor and they answered at the same time, but you know Sheldon, even if it’s troublesome, he thinks people is still going to take him wherever he wants, he just answered with her as a reflex.”

 

The other two scientists nodded and continued with their lunch, the conversation soon moved to other topics.

 

* * *

 

Sheldon was on the edge of insanity, he was in front of his board, ready to solve yet another mystery of the universe when it started…

 

_…the beat goes on and on and on and on and… Boom, clap…_

He couldn’t hear it, it was actually stunning the silence around him, and she probably had the music in the level he had told her to put her music so that it could only be heard in her apartment. Still, she was singing it! He could feel it, the urge to start repeating those unimaginative lyrics over and over again, couldn’t she stop?

 

_...make me feel good …_

He rubbed his temples with his hands, trying to concentrate in the equations in the board before him. The sound of the music in his head started to lose volume, the numbers becoming clear, and then he started writing, enjoying the easy way his brain was solving the problem, one number after another, his mind also presenting him with a mental visualization of what he had pictured the universe to be in his mind. He filled the board in what seemed to be just a few minutes… And then he lifted his head, feeling how the gravity threatened to pull him to the floor.

 

He lifted his arm and knocked on the board… _Sheldon_. He turned around, his hand knocking into the air again… _Sheldon!_ He capped his marker and walked towards the door, where the real knocking had continued… _Sheldon!_

He opened the door, Penny was on the other side, she had tied her hair in a ponytail, but somehow it was now all messy and some strands of hair were falling over her face. She lifted a notebook and pointed at it.

 

 _“Can you explain, what is this?”_ Even her thoughts sounded angry.

_“It seems to be a notebook, full of numbers and calculations.”_ He grabbed the notebook and scanned the numbers. _“They look difficult for someone with your education level, why…”_ Then he noticed… _“These are the same calculations I’ve just made on my board”_

_“I know that. I was trying to write the lyrics of a song down on my ‘lyrics notebook’, when suddenly my mind was full of numbers, and I couldn’t stop writing. Can’t you do your things on your own, why do I have to do this if you’re the smart one here?”_

_“It’s not my fault, and FYI I was listening to that hideous song that you were trying to write down, only Lord knows why, and I couldn’t focus on my work. How am I supposed to unravel the mysteries of the universe with those inane lyrics repeating in the back of my head?”_

They both looked at each other with a frown, then they both sighed, Sheldon moved to the side and let Penny in. She walked towards the couch and dropped herself over the middle seat. Sheldon walked back to his board and made a second check on Penny’s notebook and his own notes on the board.

 

 _“This is going to be a hell of a problem…”_ thought Penny clutching her head in her hands and shaking her head. Sheldon looked at her, before answering.

 

“Well, as you pointed out a while ago it wouldn’t be wise to share this with the world; I don’t even think is a good idea to tell the others.” He said, his voice resonating for the first time in the room, Penny looked at him with narrowed eyes she had probably heard his voice like an echo or something, both in her head and with her ears.

 

“ _How did you do that?... oh, no, come to think about it, it’s kinda obvious_.” Penny then opened her mouth to start talking “Well at least this time there was no need for us to repeat what the other said” She leaned back on the couch, relaxing her body a bit. It was in that moment, just after hearing Penny speak in with her mind and mouth at the same time, when in Sheldon’s mind something completely different happened…

 

_… what a nightmare… please let this finish soon… No. Privacy. At. All. … **it could help us understand the others Penny** … no, please, no, I don’t like this…_

He blinked and shook his head to regain focus. _Interesting…_

“What?” asked Penny, obviously having heard that last thought in his head.

 

“Other than noticing that you in fact think before talking, I’d say I just heard a variety of thoughts passing through your head…”

 

“Other thoughts?”

 

“Yes. Thanks to that, I have and idea of how much you really don’t like this connection. It’s not my favorite thing either, but there’s no much we can do about it right now. Oh, and somehow I think there was a memory there, but you added a few words to what Bernadette told us that day… You’re memory of her voice is very accurate.”

 

“Wait you heard that? … _Absolutely no privacy_ …”

 

“Yes. And that part about lack of privacy too.”

 

This time Penny’s face turned angry, and she jumped to her feet.

 

“You shouldn’t be angry with me! This is not my fault!”

 

“I know it’s not your fault. And as much as I want to be angry with Berny and Amy I can’t either! I refuse to blame this on them!”

 

“But…”

 

“No, you listen to me! Those thoughts of yours that are blaming Amy and Bernadette as if they were the ones who send that lightning on that specific moment are wrong! They had nothing to do with the lightning, or the electric shock! They can’t control nature! It wasn’t something planned, they had already made tests in a controlled environment before, what happened to us was an accident. So, stop blaming them and listing all those facts in your mind, it’s annoying and stressing and… and…”

 

“Penny?...”

 

Sheldon barely had time to catch her before the blonde passed out; scared he laid her over the couch. What had just happened? _Ok, ok… calm down Cooper. Think._ Apparently she had been hearing to his background thoughts as well, and that was what had made her angry. Thus resulting in her talking about something that he was just considering, also the listing of facts about their situation… Hey, his brain really worked in a very different way! He should be careful in the future; Penny was not used to manage all that information at once, or all the processes his mind was capable of doing while he was thinking.

 

They had been able to act individually – at least for a while – in their respective apartments, it would be safer if he did ‘heavy brain work’ away from her… Not really difficult as their job places were a good distance away from the other, but… She was probably right about Amy and Bernadette; he should call them and explain… No, but what if they started doing their own experiments on them… Maybe just call them and lift the banishment… Raj would say that he had trust issues… Amy was probably hurt by the way he had reacted… …  Great, his own mind was getting messy. Was this part of the side effects? What else should they expect?

 

Making sure that Penny would be comfortable when she wake up, he made his way to the kitchen, filling a glass with water and taking a pair of aspirins from the first aid kit. If he was right she was going to have a terrible headache. After placing them safely on the coffee table he took his laptop and started working. This was going to need some serious research.

 

* * *

 

Leonard, Raj and Howard arrived a few hours later, the three scientists worried of what they were going to find on the other side of the door.

 

“Maybe he has already taken Penny as his personal slave and the poor is now just fighting the urge to kill him” said Howard chuckling a bit after the last part of his sentence.

 

“It could have just been something temporal, nothing to worry about; they’re probably watching Indiana Jones for the hundredth time” said Leonard trying to be reasonable.

 

“I don’t want to make guesses. Let’s find out!” said Raj excited.

 

During the day different theories had been discussed about the situation between their friends, at first it was with concern and a bit of fear, but at some point it had turned to “what if’s” and from there the possible results of the experimentation had took them from sci-fi to supernatural ideas.

 

Trying to hide his curiosity Leonard opened the door, only to find Sheldon typing furiously at his laptop, and Penny snoring on the couch. There were a couple of boards full of numbers and notes, but somehow they seemed to have been forgotten.

 

“So much for a mistery...” said Raj disappointed. He and Howard made their way to the kitchen and helped themselves to some water. Leonard however approached Penny on the couch and watched her sleep.

 

“You’re such a beautiful woman…” he whispered so that the others couldn’t hear him, taking a loose strand of her hair behind her ear. “Like a fairy tail princess…”

 

“Don’t!” came Sheldon’s voice from his place in front of his computer, Leonard lifted his head and watched him, not sure of why he had said that. “Don’t talk to Penny like that, especially not right now. I’m working!”

 

“And how is it me talking to Penny disturbing your work?” He asked a bit annoyed.

 

“It just does” said Sheldon hiding a visible tick when he said that.

 

Leonard narrowed his eyes, but didn’t want to argue with him right now, so he jumped to the next item on his “to do” list.

 

“Did you have any trouble today? Are you both alright? ... How long has she been asleep?” He said a little more concerned now with his last question.

 

Sheldon jumped out of his chair, checking his watch. He pressed his lips together before looking around, by now Howard and Raj were also looking at him with worried faces.

 

“About two hours… To answer your previous questions, we had no major troubles today and until just a moment ago I was sure we both were fine…”

 

The four men in the room looked expectantly at Penny, who in that moment started to move, making them sigh with relief at the same time. She stretched up and smiled sleepily at them for a second… Then she opened her eyes wider and muttered a nervous ‘hello?’

 

“ _Aspirins and water on the table. They know nothing, act normal…”_ thought Sheldon quickly trying to keep the scene casual in spite of his raising panic… which to his surprise was shared with Penny, if the way she was looking at him was anything to go by.

 

She nodded a bit, placing a cheerful smile again on her lips and then reached for the water.

 

“Hi, guys! How was your day at work? … Sorry Sheldon I asked for the aspirins and then fall asleep before you brought them…” Leonard looked from Penny to Sheldon, but if he suspected something he didn’t say.

 

“Is it a headache the only remaining side effect Penny?” asked Howard, his worry for Bernadette was palpable even if he hadn’t mentioned it.

 

“Oh, this one was actually caused by something different. Sheldon and I discussed it, and we don’t have any other symptom, so we decided not to visit the doctor unless completely necessary.” Howard looked at Sheldon. For a moment he felt a bit nervous because although they had decided not to visit the doctor, there was a very interesting symptom still manifesting itself on them, and what he was about to say would be a half truth, he was probably going to have a tick and they’ll know it was a lie.

 

“It’s true; during the whole morning we didn’t show or suffered from any distressing symptoms. I’d say we don’t need to see a doctor, at least not unless urgent medical assistance was required” he said trying to behave and stay as calm as possible, his friends looked at him for a few seconds, the longest 3 seconds of his life.

 

On the couch Penny’s right eye twitched and closed against her will… a tick… and then they both sighed with relief… the others didn’t seem to have noticed that, or Penny’s reaction to Sheldon lying… Her voice reached his head and hi smiled.

 

_“This is going to be terribly complicated”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading to you all. I’m already working on next chapter, it’ll be up in a week or so, be patient. Salads are part of a healthy diet (not that I’m asking for more tomatoes, just so you know I don’t mind them at all), but chocolates are my favorite dessert =D. Almost forgot, "BOOM, Clap" lyrics are not mine.


	3. Subconsious realm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, you lovely people! I know updates take a little bit longer than what you would like, but believe me, this story was already complicated in my mind, and some of the situations are hard to explain (at least in English, I can do them quite well in Spanish) and I know that I have to be careful to make it work. Thank you by the way for your comments, I’m really happy to read them, I don’t often think of good and original reply’s for them – sorry about that -, but believe me your support keep me writing (whether is a simple hi, a click on the follow/favorite button or a long and helpful advice).
> 
> I’m planning on making some fun chapters, there are so many things that could go wrong with this two sharing minds, I will try to build the romance a bit quickly this time, of course you can always contribute with ideas, right now I’m still making a solid base for that. There’s also a reference down there to Sherlock’s fandom, I tried to work with the “mind palace” idea, not in the same way as in that series, but shaping it a bit differently to fit here. Read and enjoy, see you next chapter!

**3.- Subconscious realm.**

 

The rest of the evening was spent in silence, at least concerning to Sheldon and Penny that stayed like that while listening to Leonard, Howard and Raj talking about what they had noticed as side effects of the girl’s experiment, somehow they had started to get along better, knowing instinctively if the other needed some object or how a sentence was going to finish, it wasn’t telepathic at all, since there was no direct connection between minds –  as Sheldon pointed out in a thought after listening to them – but there was a certain degree of similarity, it wasn’t very strong either and it seemed to be wearing off after almost three days.

 

Leonard and Howard had mentioned also experiencing static electricity effects while they were working, mentioning sparks whenever they touched something metallic, but that had just lasted only the first day. The topic had fallen to that, when they decided to tell them what had happened during the weekend, just before they started worrying about them.

 

Sheldon had to admit that he was very impressed to find that, other than causing the little problem that he now had with Penny, the female part of the group had actually reached a positive response to their experiment…

 

He decided to lift the banishment in that moment, Penny was right; Amy and Bernadette had done nothing wrong, and they deserved to come back. He wasn’t at all sure if he wanted to allow things to continue in the same way either; at least his doubts about whether or not the consequences required them to be away were now cleared. With an encouraging nod from Penny, he sent them both a text message and informed them of his decision, apologizing for overreacting – something that Penny insisted he did – and inviting them to come over.

 

It didn’t take long for the girls to knock at the door, though it was a bit surprising that they had arrived so fast, he stood up to open the door. Unaware of what Sheldon had done the guys looked at him confused.

 

“Who did you call? It’s not pizza night! Raj and I are going to get the food later” said Leonard.

 

“I didn’t order a pizza” he simply said, opening the door to Amy and Bernadette. “Ladies” he nodded and let them in.

 

“You called them?” asked a surprised Howard standing up to hug his wife.

 

“I did” said Sheldon suddenly being crushed by Amy’s arms around him. Penny smiled widely and when he didn’t hug her back she crossed her arms in front of her and he couldn’t help but do the same. It was weird how this kind of things tended to happen in different moments; there was no way to know when they were in control and when not. He looked at Penny with a frown; they had to find a way to learn how to control this thing and all the involved parts of their mind soon.

 

“I was so worried!” Amy said, bringing him back to the present while looking up at him with a smile “I really thought we had done something really wrong when you wouldn’t wake up, I feared that you would never want to see me again after that. I’m glad you changed your mind, but it’s sort of unlike you.”

 

“Penny and I talked about it, and she made me realize that you had no way of knowing when that lightning was going to fall, and so I had to admit that it wasn’t your fault and it was unfair of me to have banished you. I’m sorry. I’ve heard your experiment was actually successful.”

 

“It was.” This time Amy stepped back smiling and went to sit next to Penny, she seemed relieved and relaxed.

 

“I’m going to need to speak with you, Amy and Bernadette, about something, but maybe other day, right now you can once again socialize with us as usual.”

 

“That’s very nice Sheldon! I think the experiment also worked on you two, this is awesome!” said Leonard smiling.

 

Things however hadn’t become easy with only a day; Sheldon had tried to take note of every affected part of his mind that was now in shared domain with Penny, but it have been difficult with every passing moment.

 

They had managed to avoid talking at the same time, but only because every time one of them was about to say something the other had to make a conscious effort to not say it too, also with the movements, it had been hard at first to move individually, easier to do while in separate rooms, but sometimes really awkward, like when one of them needed to use the bathroom… That had really been a difficult task!

 

They however couldn’t control their thoughts, they shared every single one and even things they were not really giving priority were displayed to the other. At some point Penny had been bitten by a mosquito and Sheldon had to fight the urge to scratch his arm like Penny, he could feel the itch, but there was nothing to scratch.

 

That night, after battling through the night rituals, they finally felt a bit separated mentally speaking, once in their respective bedroom there was peace… at least for a while.

 

* * *

 

 

Sheldon was standing in the middle of a living room. Not the same living room that was in his apartment. No, in this place there was a chair, not a couch, specially centered over a circle on the black marble floor that showed an electronic display flashing the numbers “ _0,0,0,0_ ”, and a big flat screen, the walls were covered bottom to top in books, all of them in certain order, by subject, author and year of publishing, it was clean, ordered, high tech and a nice room. There was even a shelf with a space for every video game console he possessed, and their respective games were also ordered in the same fashion as the books next to it.

 

He looked around; it was without doubt a dream. He had dreamed about this place before, shaping it in his mind to make it the most comfortable place in… well, the most comfortable place for him, he had also an oniric representation of a city and a variety of places, but somehow this one was his favorite, it was peaceful and in order but this time it felt weird, he had never dreamt so vividly about this place before. He walked out of the room, to a little hallway that had a few pictures hanging from it, pictures of his family and friends, he was going to stop and look at them when he felt the need to open the door.

 

What he saw there was not what he had expected. There was no visible up and down there, no lines to tell the ground from the sky, confident that he was wandering his mind he stepped out, standing in mid air he looked around. Next to the house – a big, three stored house of white walls and ample windows - was what looked like a bubble wall, it was transparent and shiny, even the same iridescent colors that a bubble showed were there, and on the other side of it was a different construction.

 

There were a few walls, but none of them was of the same height and there was no roof, the colors of the walls also were different and there was a bunch of objects on the floor, he looked more closely, making sure to not trespass the bubble wall, there was a mountain of shoe boxes, there were also some lists, and photographs, food and clothes, it looked as if someone’s house had been blown up by a tornado and ended up there…

 

 _“Penny?”_ he asked wondering if what he was thinking was actually possible.

 

 _“What the…? Sheldon? Where are you?”_ came Penny’s voice from somewhere behind a wall, he heard her trip over some things until she managed to step out of one side of the weird house, and once there test if she could actually step out of the place and walk towards him. _“What’s this place? Where are we?”_ She then looked around, first to Sheldon and the house behind him, then to the bubble wall and finally to the construction behind her seemingly floating in the air. _“It’s like a dream… Oh my God! Are we dreaming? This looks familiar, but… how?”_

_“Penny, are you aware of what this means? The fact that we both know this is a dream and that we’re actually being able to communicate with each other?”_ said Sheldon trying to keep calm but feeling a shiver ran down his spine while he said that.

 

 _“Even I know this shouldn’t be happening!”_ said Penny approaching the bubble wall to stand in front of him. _“How do I know you’re not part of my dream right now?”_

_“How would I know? You could be part of MY dream for all I know”_ said Sheldon trying to feel sure about this, looking for any sings of reason in this subconscious space.

 

 _“Maybe you should wake up!”_ suggested Penny.

 

 _“I don’t want to wake up! You do it! Penny you know my sleeping schedules can’t be disturbed.”_ Penny frowned, and suddenly a line of white letters appeared over her head, they said ‘I don’t want to wake up either!’, and for some strange reason he could sense the pout behind those words.

 

 _“Who lives in that house?”_ Penny asked pointing at the house behind him.

 

 _“I do”_ said Sheldon looking back at the white imperial house next to him.

 

 _“What do you mean you do? How would you know?”_ said Penny looking at the house in wonder.

 

 _“I made it. In my dreams. It took me years to make it look like that, but I’ve only ever been there while I’m asleep.”_ He said looking at her; Penny then turned around and looked at the barely standing house behind her.

 

 _“Does that mean that_ that _thing is mine?”_

 

 _“I should think so”_ he said looking at the mess behind his friend.

 

 _“Why does it look like that?”_ she asked shaking her head, it was really a disaster.

 

 _“I don’t know, but I have a theory.”_ Sheldon said eyeing the bubble wall and walking to a nearest zone to Penny’s messy place. _“If this is our mind, and these places exist in our dreams it has to be part of our subconscious, our memories maybe, a place in our mind that we use to place recent events and analyze them while we sleep, resources for our dreams if you want.”_

 

 _“You mean this is like a supply room and that those things are memories that I use to build dreams…”_ Penny pointed at the mountain of things on the floor behind her, and then looked at him with confusion, she really didn’t understand. She frowned at him and pointed at the top of his head. _“Hey, at least I’m trying!”_

 

Sheldon looked up in time to see a line of words disappear over his head that said ‘She’s not getting it…’

 

 _“Well I’m sure that while we’re here in this… zone, you can put some order. It took me years to put my thoughts in order, you’ve never consciously tried to do something like this, I bet you weren’t even aware of the changes you could do to that place, that’s why it looks like that. Look we’re both sleeping, is not as if you were going to get tired, you can do it now”_ Penny’s frown deepened. Without making an effort to go to her things and start sorting them out she looked up at the bubble wall.

 

_“What is this?”_

 

 _“I don’t know…”_ he said also looking at the wall. A phrase appeared over Penny’s head. ‘And like that the genius disappears and no one knows a thing…’ He cleared his throat and tried to ignore it. _“I think is some kind of barrier…”_

 

 _“No way!”_ exclaimed Penny and the word ‘Sarcasm’ appeared next to her.

 

 _“… Would you let me finish first?”_ He asked looking at her and Penny nodded. _“It’s a mental barrier, one that’s meant to be there to avoid our minds to totally blend together; it’s a frontier that keeps our minds working individually…”_

 

 _“It looks fragile”_ said Penny leaning towards it without touching it.

 

_“It does. But as long as we don’t touch it we’ll be fine. This cannot last for too long, don’t you think?”_

 

_“What if it does? Would we be able to ‘mentally’ change it and make it stronger?”_

 

 _“That’s an interesting idea. If we reach that point we’ll try, but I want to believe that this is not going to be a permanent state.”_ Penny nodded and pressed her lips together with concern, then looked back at the place behind her and sighed.

 

Without another word she started sorting things, placing shoe boxes in a more presentable way, trying some pairs and looking at some of the papers and photos, sometimes long sentences or tiny images would form around her, Sheldon watched her for a while, leaning against the wall of his house. After a while his own thoughts wandered and he ended up looking at the heights of the walls and calculating the difference between them.

 

After a while Penny giggled, he could see a thin line of words forming next to her. _“What is it?”_ he asked curious.

 

“ _It’s nothing. I was just watching you, and all the numbers that are appearing around you, diagrams and notes; you really are a very smart guy. I was thinking that it’s very much like you to be surrounded by numbers.”_ He smiled and was about to comment how she had been surrounded by thoughts as well, when a loud noise interrupted him, and suddenly he was opening his eyes, watching the white ceiling over his head and reaching out to turn off the alarm next to his bed.

 

Once he turned it off he stayed a few seconds like that, wondering if what he had just ‘dreamt’ was really a dream or if he and Penny had really being mentally linked during the night. As if to answer his question his phone beeped next to him.

 

**Sheldon!? Dream. U. Me. Am I crazy?! – Penny**

He sat up and started his morning rituals leaving the phone on his bedside table and ignoring the beeping that was probably only another confirmation of what had happened, Penny was probably expecting an answer but he wasn’t sure about all of this, it was just too much.

 

* * *

 

 

Leonard wondered if Sheldon was suffering some kind of break down, during the whole ride to work – although he didn’t need to go – he had been silent and looking outside, it was so weird to see him like this. He was kind of missing playing a car game since it had been three days since the last one… well, maybe that was just him going crazy.

 

He parked on his usual place and waited for Sheldon to step out of the car. Once there his friend sighed and started walking inside the building, things were getting weirder. He wasn’t even sure if he wanted to ask, on one hand Sheldon was acting weird and that probably meant he was stuck trying to solve something or he had some trouble and didn’t know how to ask for help, on the other hand his roommate tended to exaggerate and give a long awkward speech about his supposed trouble – that usually were simple things - before starting giving orders and expecting him (and Howard and Raj) to help without asking… Well, he was going to end up doing that anyway. Rolling his eyes he followed him.

 

“Sheldon, are you okay? What’s wrong mate?” Sheldon looked at him and somehow his gaze seemed to be lost, as if Sheldon himself wasn’t really aware of his mood.

 

“Nothing” his answer shouldn’t make him feel so worried. Leonard waited, expecting the explosion of words that was the normal reaction after a short answer, when Sheldon usually let go of his unusual need to keep things for himself and as always started to talk… but that didn’t happened. He followed him all the way to his office and in all that time Sheldon kept being silent, not a word, nothing else.

 

After finding himself facing the closed door to Sheldon’s office he felt panic starting to rise inside him and turned around hoping that Howard or Raj or both had already arrived so he could talk to them about this. Sheldon had a problem, a big one and if they didn’t do something about it quickly, they were going to be affected by it and whatever crazy idea de theoretical physicist would think to solve it.

 

Sheldon however once inside his office went to delete everything he had written in his whiteboard; he could remember every line on it anyway. Now he needed to work, he needed to make a huge research about some topics but it didn’t matter. Once he could sort out what had really happened, what that meant for Penny and him he will be able to talk to Amy and Bernadette and maybe let them know about the problem.

 

At least here at work he couldn’t hear Penny’s voice in his head; he relished the quietness of his mind and started writing on the board…

 

* * *

 

When Penny arrived from work that evening she was happier than that morning. She had had a wonderful morning, being herself, away from the strange and confusing mind of Sheldon Cooper.

 

She liked him, really, he was a good – weird but good – friend and she had always admired his intelligence, but one thing was tolerating his personality and quirks and other was sharing them. She remembered just how overwhelming it was to be able to hear his thoughts, on one hand there was the leading thought that was usually connected to the present actions, but in his head there was also the logical thought that gave straight sentences and were like little rules he had to follow, then the analytic thought that in some level tended to compare everything with science, and some other trains of thought that made her dizzy.

 

She had not enjoyed sharing her precious night time in a semi-conscious state trying to put order to her mind; she didn’t even do that with her apartment for god’s sake! The worst part was that she had felt self conscious, when she had seen the gorgeous fortress behind Sheldon in comparison with the messy excuse of a shelter in her mind. She was not going to cope well with the situation if it happened again tonight. At some point she had been tempted to talk about that with Amy or Bernadette, but she was afraid that they were going to read too much into it and start making experiments with her. In that she had to agree with Sheldon, they were not going to mess with her brain again.

 

Trying to not ruin her good mood with distracting and annoying thoughts she went to the fridge and pulled out the ice cream she had bought last week, putting a big quantity of it in a bowl and walking back to her couch, she kicked off her shoes and went to the TV stand to look for a movie to watch. That was what she needed a good lazy evening watching a good movie with some ice cream!

 

As the movie went on she allowed herself to be dragged into the story, picturing herself walking those amazing places, feeling loved by the handsome guy, sometimes quoting the most romantic lines, _titling her head trying to imagine the softness of the man’s lips on hers in a passionate…_

 

_Penny…_

Oh no! Not now, please! _…in a passionate kiss, feeling his warm breath on her cheek right before his tongue…_

 

Penny…

 

Ugh… there was no way of having a good fantasy with such a neighbor, and now even less given the lack of privacy even in her mind… She stood up, waiting for the last round of knocks on her door.

 

“Penny… Don’t open the door!” She blinked in confusion at the door… ‘ _What?’_  “I said do not open the door! I just wanted to tell you that I’ve been investigating and working on our… uhm problem; I think it would be beneficial for us to stay away from each other, maybe it’ll make it disappear…”

 

“That’s why I can’t open the door then?” she heard Sheldon sigh on the other side of the door ‘It’s so hard to try and not think about it… but what should I say? _Because I don’t want to kiss you?_ ’ “It’s because of that movie you were watching, your thoughts… I… I don’t know how to explain this…”

 

 _“You know that you really don’t have to explain it, don’t you? I heard you!”_ Penny said, not happy of having to use her new ‘ability’ to communicate with Sheldon… She could picture his nervous and probably blushing face on the other side of the door.

 

 _“Sorry, I should have thought… shouldn’t have thought… - well that’s embarrassing. - Just stop day dreaming, I would appreciate it if you could keep your cravings to yourself thank you. I’ll try not to bother you with mine.”_ Penny giggled a bit when a picture of Sheldon in her head puckering his lips as if to kiss some imaginary person appeared in her mind, it was hilarious.

_“Why thank you Moon Pie! I’ll make sure to text you if your thoughts suddenly mess with mine.”_

_“That will help with my investigation, thank you Penny”_ She heard him walk to his door. _“By the way I don’t think that’s funny at all, so please stop thinking about it.”_ Penny returned to the couch and took another spoon of ice cream trying to muffle another fit of giggles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not good? Probably… *the man selling veggies puts a 10% discount on the tomatoes price* Sorry I still have to find a way of working their pile of thoughts in a more practical way, I’ll start using different symbols maybe (stories with lives of their own tend to write themselves and are wild, believe me I know it); also it’s hard to work with Leonard, for some reason I cannot fully understand him, he’s weird… I’m sorry if this was awfully confusing, I promise to revise it and edit this chapter in the future!


	4. Procedure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So now that Sheldon is trying to solve the problem he has with Penny, what other things are they going to face bfore knowing if their condition is temporal or not?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! I know I said I was going to make some fun chapters, but this one just wasn’t supposed to be… I tried to find a chance to put something funny, but it just would let me… Any way, it takes me at least four or five chapters to have a real support for the whole story, after this one things are supposed to flow more easily, I hope you can still enjoy the story even when this chapter is a bit more serious than usual, I love your comments, and I love to read all about what you think will happen in future chapters, so please share your ideas with me, sometimes it’s surprising to see that someone actually knows what I’m planning!
> 
> Things will be more interesting next chapter, I promise, please read and enjoy, I’ll be working on the next one as soon as I can!

**4\. - Procedure**

 

The following day Sheldon devoted himself to keep working on the current problem that Penny and he were facing; he had made a few diagrams regarding the place between dreams that they had visited during the night. He had also tried to understand why their movements were synchronized some times and some others not, trying to find out why the connection was so strong between them.

 

His own calculations had made him realize that the electric charge that they had received when the light had come back, hadn’t been on a dangerous level, the machine itself was wired to resist certain quantity of electricity, if Amy had decided to use any other instrument, maybe one with more capacity Penny and him would be probably dead, or with critical brain damage.

 

Part of the observations that Leonard, Howard and Raj had made about the experiment itself were also on his white board, so far he had noticed that there was certain level of compatibility required to actually improve the interactions with others. While they had been, at some point, connected to another person in the room, there were several differences in their interactions. For example, Leonard and Raj, had been connected together at some point, and then Howard and Raj, but perhaps because of their longer and closer friendship the changes brought by the experiment had not improved Raj’s  friendship relationship with Leonard as much as the one with Howard, that could be said also about the relation between Leonard and Howard.

 

Amy and Bernadette had of course managed to get along in a better way, and he knew for sure that Penny was not going to have any problem to notice the change between the three of them. Until now she hadn’t really spent a lot of time with Leonard after the experiment, and he had to admit that he was a bit worried of what could happen. Worried about his own person of course, because although Leonard and Penny had remained being friends since their last failed attempt of a romantic relationship, he knew that Leonard simply couldn’t let go of his natural infatuation with the blonde, and now having experienced what Penny’s mind was capable of doing he wasn’t at all sure if he wanted to know how she felt for Leonard.

 

It had been very annoying to suddenly feel the urge to kiss someone, why would anybody want to share saliva in that primitive way? Why would anyone want to share saliva at all? He had to admit, in his limited experience, that the texture of other people’s lips was not bad at all; Amy’s lips were thin and small, she had kissed him once without any add, but eventually she had acquired Penny’s habit of wearing lip stick and lip gloss. The latest had been a terrible experience, too slippery, but the lipstick was ok. Right now he wasn’t at all sure of what he felt for his girlfriend.

 

Simple observation had showed him that people in a relationship tended to commit to ‘quid pro quo’, though he had tried to actually engage in the paradigm, he was now feeling a bit out of place. Amy was an amazing woman, she always tried to make him happy, trying to make his feelings for her grow, but lately he couldn’t help but feel guilty. He was trying, really, but the more time he spent with Amy the more he felt he was taking advantage of her. It wasn’t fair to have her making sacrifices for him and not managing to feel the same way towards her.

A part of him – a very logical and cold part of him – was aware that Amy was bound to be hurt if things stayed that way, he was fond of her, and because of that it was probably better if he was honest and allowed her to find someone that could give her the love she wanted and deserved. There was also his ‘ego’, Amy busted it, loved to praise him, but things weren’t supposed to be like that. Penny had made him realize that, when Amy had been successful in her work and he had cruelly ignored it.

 

Come to think about it, Penny was often his voice of reason, not even Leonard managed to make him understand other people the way Penny did, she tried to explaining things to him – in the most simple of ways – and though she always ended mad at him (he really wondered why was that) he managed to understand it in the end. She also like to challenge him, make him mad and sometimes – like at Halo – best him, but it was fun, he actually enjoyed spending time with her, experimenting with her… mostly without her knowing, arguing with her… He and Penny were best friends!

 

That was probably it, the thing that with the ‘extra’ charge had linked their minds, their friendship. Leonard was a good friend, but that had taken time, they had been sharing an apartment for more than ten years! Penny on the other hand, had been his friend almost from the very first weeks they had know each other, it had happened so naturally that he couldn’t tell when she had gone from being just a friend to being his best female friend.

 

… Now he really needed to spent time with Leonard and Penny, to try to find out if there had been some kind of improvement in his relationship with the ‘experimental physicist’ in comparison with Penny.

 

* * *

 

 

“What do you mean Sheldon is in trouble? Has he hacked again any governmental program? Is he trying to purchase uranium again?” asked Howard a bit skeptical at Leonard’s worried argument.

 

“Is not that… Well, I don’t know, he’s been acting strange ever since he woke up from that long weekend…” said Leonard trying to convince his friend while Howard tried to untangle some wires of a machine. “I think he might have been affected in a different way than us with that experiment. He’s always dramatic about everything and this time he’s been so quiet, it’s… unlike him”

 

“Yeah, a quiet Sheldon is really something unusual, he hasn’t been talking much either when we’re in group, not even his annoying remarks whenever he wants to be the ‘know it all’ in the room.” Said Raj nodding with his arms crossed in front of him.

 

“Yeah…” said Howard looking up and leaving the tangle of wires in the table in front of him “… now that you mention it, last night he didn’t say much, he also kept glancing towards Penny every now and then…”

 

“Did you see his face when she went to the bathroom? It was hilarious, it’s as if they were thinking about the same thing but Penny moved first… of course Mr. ‘Schedule for everything’ couldn’t go if it wasn’t ‘time to’…” chuckled Raj looking at the ceiling and shaking his head.

 

“Don’t you think that is some kind of… secondary effect? He and Penny are really good friends after all…” asked Leonard considering it for a moment.

 

“Nah” answered Howard “synchronization would probably mean they share a deeper mind connection and that’s just… Look, if Penny were supposed to have a closer connection with someone, that would be you Leonard, you two were a couple, I’m sure you share more things in common with her than Sheldon.”

 

“He’s right” said Raj

 

“I know, but…” Leonard sighed “Ever since we met her… that day, you should’ve seen it. It was as if they already knew each other, there was this instant communication… and for Penny’s standard that’s a lot because no one has ever been able to understand Sheldon on the first day of knowing him… I mean it was obvious that Penny couldn’t really understand what he was saying, but Sheldon seemed to be unconsciously making it easy for her… I don’t remember all about that day, but maybe if I hadn’t been there…” he waved his hands in the air, trying to make them understand where that would have led to.

 

“I don’t think so, when we first met Penny, Sheldon’s social skills were even worse than now, it would’ve taken years for them to pass over the acquaintance-friend line, not to mention that at this moment in time they would be struggling to even call each other ‘best friend’, it’s just nonsense Leonard, whatever it its that Sheldon is working on, if it really means trouble, we will end up helping him with it in no time… don’t worry!” said Howard not giving importance to the subject.

 

Leonard sighed again; well maybe Howard was right, Penny and Sheldon had proved to be really good friends with time, but during all that time nothing had ever happened between them, he had however succeeded at dating Penny, and Sheldon was with Amy…

 

“That really didn’t answer my question, we shouldn’t be discussing the ‘what ifs’ of their relationship, I was talking about the true connection between them, the way they both interact so easily with the other, maybe they were affected by the experiment in a different way, remember that they received a much powerful charge than us… don’t you think that could…”

 

“Leonard! Stop it. Listen to you, you’re dramatizing almost as much as Sheldon, calm down, even if they are suffering a secondary effect it will wear off.” Said Howard reassuring him, with his wide ‘you are kidding’ smile, he wasn’t in the mood to start panicking about what could happen if Sheldon and Penny were actually suffering from such effect after an innocent and harmless experiment.

 

“We can start checking on him now and then; find out what he’s really up to. I mean it’s not the first time that he keeps something from us, this time we’re just noticing before suffering the ‘after effects’ of his crazy experiments” said Raj.

 

Howard and Leonard looked at him, the engineer’s expression turning worried now, it was true that Sheldon tend to experiment on them, sometimes with awful results for them, if he was planning to experiment on them again…

 

“Yeah, that’s something we can actually do and worry about. So if it calms you down Leonard, we can try to find out what he’s planning to do with us this time.”

 

* * *

 

 

Penny climbed up the last few steps that led her finally to her apartment, she was having an awful headache and the only thing she wanted right now was to lie down on her couch, take off her shoes and probably have a drink.

 

She wondered where her good mood had gone. It had been a quiet morning, at least that night she hadn’t found herself suddenly sharing a dream with Sheldon – since he hadn’t answered to her text the other night she wondered if it had been an actual dream – but she supposed that had something to do with the fact that they were both tired.

 

Still, work had been driving her crazy; she hadn’t been able to stop all day, going from one place to another, do this, do that, all day long! The weather right now was unpredictable, and it had affected her as well, the day had gone from being in what seemed a strong heat wave to a windy-cloudy evening that promised another storm.

 

She entered her apartment and kicked off her shoes, dropping her bag next to the door and walking towards the kitchen in search for something to drink. And then she felt it…

 

Sheldon’s mind tangling itself around her, the feeling made her shiver. It felt as if something warm crawled up her body, from her ankles, over her legs and then all the way up her spine and then inside her head, she shouldn’t enjoy it as much as she did.

 

Just like that she forgot about her drink and returned to get her cel from her bag.

 

**Where R U? - Penny**

 

Sheldon’s answer was quick.

 

**In Leonard’s car. We’ll arrive in a couple of minutes. - Dr. Sheldon Cooper**

 

Penny looked at her phone, they were still a bit far from the building then… should she be able to sense his mind from that far? She started typing that question when another message came in.

 

**No, we shouldn’t. The range is growing. And no, I don’t think those are good news either. - Dr. Sheldon Cooper**

When she read it, Sheldon’s voice had been talking in her mind, it took her about 2 seconds to realize that it had in fact been his voice.

 

“ _Oh my god! Sheldon we’re communicating through long distances now… what are we going to do?_ ” She asked in her mind, feeling panic.

 

“ _Calm down Penny. I’m already working on this, we will solve it. I promise._ ” Said Sheldon’s voice in her head, and though she couldn’t see his face she could sense his own fear through their minds.

 

She then turned around and hurried towards her room, her head was still throbbing with pain, but there were important matters to attend before anything else. She changed her clothes to something more comfortable and went to grab a pair of aspirins.

 

Sheldon and Leonard arrived a moment later; she could feel Sheldon’s proximity, Penny took a deep breath and opened the door to her apartment the moment the two scientists climbed the last step. There was silence for a moment, while Leonard smiled and nodded in her direction she and Sheldon looked at each other, their face serious.

 

* * *

 

 

Leonard reached for his key inside his pocket and opened the door to their apartment, looking back at his friends when no one followed him. “Aren’t you coming in?” he asked warily. Penny and Sheldon – both at the same time – turned their heads to see him. Leonard gulped, feeling suddenly as if interrupting something important. It was then when he started to feel terrified of what could happen next

 

In tandem they walked towards the door and entered, leaving Leonard out when he moved to let them in. The experimental physicist watched worried how his friends walked towards the couch in perfect sync, they sat down and turned around again to see him, it was creepy, like some sci-fi movie of aliens or clones...

 

A little less convinced about it he walked in the apartment again and went to the kitchen to grab a bottle of water.

 

“Would you like something to drink?” he asked fearing an answer. When there was no reply he leaned against the kitchen table drinking casually from his bottle. The silence was stretching and becoming uncomfortable now.

 

“Leonard” said Sheldon, not really to his comfort “I need to talk with you.” Trying to act as if nothing was wrong right now Leonard walked towards the living room and sat on his chair.

 

“What is it Sheldon?” he asked.

 

“I have a request to make”

 

Well that didn’t sound so difficult, maybe he really needed help and he had already asked Penny to do it. “What is it?”

 

“I’ve been pondering the girl’s experiment, the other day you told me about what you had noticed while interacting with the others and since Penny and I weren’t able to ‘learn’ anything about that experience I was wondering if you would mind a little experimentation” there it was, Sheldon Cooper once again wanted to experiment with them.

 

“What kind of experiments? Let me tell you Sheldon that if your experiments put us in danger somehow I…”

 

“Relax” said Penny waving a hand resting it importance. “Sheldon only wants us” she pointed at the three of them “to spend some time together”

 

Sheldon nodded but said nothing, Penny looked at him and Sheldon reacted once again. Really if things kept going the way they were he would have to call Howard and Raj to apply some of the weirdest rules in the roommate agreement.

 

“Sorry… As I was saying, I’ve been noticing the subtle changes that you mentioned in my interactions with Penny, but I need to compare it with someone else, and since you and I spend a considerable amount of time together I think I could be able to notice more if we spend time doing ordinary things” Okay, so things weren’t as weird as he had suspected

 

* * *

 

 

Amy looked at the chart on her screen computer, moving a pen between her fingers so that it was repeatedly bouncing on the table, the results from the experiment were almost everything they had envisioned when they had first talked about the idea, but the important word there was still _almost._

While they had actually improved the interactions between one another in the same group there was still the doubt of what had happened with Penny and Sheldon. She couldn’t help but feel a bit jealous of her friend. Penny was a very beautiful woman, she wasn’t as smart as her, but when it came to social skills Penny was the most talented woman she knew.

 

It had taken a while for her to really appreciate the kind of person that Penny was, when she had met her it had been really weird to see such an ordinary person interact with them, she had this amazing body and blonde hair, she was like a princess, like the most popular girl in the school and she was actually trying to understand and hang out with the nerds.

 

At some point she had been caught by the blonde’s charm, she was always kind and never judged her, Amy had never had closer friends, and Penny represented her only chance to actually experience some of those ‘youth magic moments’, she made her feel feminine, challenged her to try new things and be confident about it, if Penny was able to accept her as she was then she was really the perfect woman, Amy tried to let her know that every time she could, because no matter how confident and beautiful her friend was she still could see her struggling on occasion.

 

But then there was this little thing between her and Sheldon. It had been a surprise to see how dynamic their relationship was, Sheldon wasn’t and ordinary man, he was a genius, quirky, terrible at social skills, he wasn’t even the most handsome man she had seen, the man just had _something_ … It was easier to understand if you said that he was Penny’s complete opposite, you could just write and adjective to describe Penny and Sheldon would have the antonym. After she had first spent time with the full group, she had come to notice without doubt that the blonde and the genius shared a very singular friendship that couldn’t be compared with any other member of the group.

 

Not even Leonard who had been Penny’s boyfriend in many occasions was close to ever replace Sheldon with their neighbor. When Sheldon started dating her, Amy couldn’t be happier, the most amazing woman in the world was her best friend, and now the most intelligent man was her boyfriend, it was like a match made in heaven! Encouraged always by Penny, she had never felt in danger of loosing Sheldon, at least not until now.

 

She had been scared at the beginning of the experiment, on one hand it was because this was an unauthorized experiment and if it affected any of their friends she and Bernadette would probably loose more than just their jobs, on the other hand she had been afraid to practice the experiment on Sheldon and Penny, she had almost been tempted to tell Sheldon that if he chose not to participate in the experiment it was ok, but Bernadette had this weird idea and wanted to understand him, and there had been no way to stop her. From the whole group Berny was the only one that had never really wanted to be with Sheldon more time than the strictly necessary, but maybe because Howard and he were good friends she was willing to try.

 

And now all because of that, things were starting to change, she had never regretted an experiment more than the last one. She had the feeling that what had happened to Sheldon and Penny that night had affected the pair in more ways than one, they had been closer friends before the experiment, this one could have been the last push they needed to change the way they see each other, she needed to know exactly how and the way it was going to change her whole life. The experiment was in authorization process to start testing on animals – a little lie they had told the whole gang to allow them to start - but once they flashed the green light she was going to emulate the accident with a pair of chimps.

 

As much as she loved and appreciated Penny’s friendship and Sheldon’s clumsy steps in their relationship, she wasn’t going to easily accept it if they suddenly wanted to start dating each other, it would break her heart… She was going to try and do something before that problem ever showed up, she was sure that it was possible to keep things as they were…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again I want to remind you that I don’t have anything against any character of the original series, nothing at all, so please understand that while it could seem otherwise Amy is a very beloved character to me and things will be ending in a good way for her as well. Thanks for understanding, until next chapter!


	5. Experimentation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Here we are once again, another chapter! This one starts from the last Leonard’s POV part in the last chapter, though this one is with a different POV. I tried to make a mixture of emotions down there, I really hope it works. Also there is a scene that… well, you will understand when you get there. Thank you, thank you all for your comments, favorites and kudos, it really means a lot to me.
> 
> As you know I don’t own the series (sadly), no, really, not even in DVD, so I rely on Warner Bros channel to constantly air it to watch the episodes, which is why I’m not sure if the scenes from the past that I mention down there are in order or if they belong to the same or different chapters (I promise to investigate), so once again I hope you enjoy this new one, and thanks again for reading!

**5\. – Experimentation.**

 

Once Penny saw Sheldon arrive with Leonard, things got complicated, maybe it was because they had just experienced a ‘long distance’ communication, their minds were in a very sensible state and they could actually feel their shared anxiety and confusion.

 

Penny could also feel Sheldon’s curiosity, he was afraid and confused, of course, but at the same time he was really excited, his natural instincts made him want to know more about what was going on, experiment, learn… this man was really in love with science, he was also worried, questioning himself.

 

Sheldon on the other side was already cataloging the overload of emotions running through his and Penny’s connection, the blonde was nervous, starting to panic even, she was unsure of the situation, afraid of the consequences; there was also some very different emotions that he hadn’t expected to feel, like relief, and slight happiness, that was contributing to calm her, but there was also admiration and trust…

 

“Aren’t you coming in?” asked Leonard, suddenly pulling them out of the weird atmosphere they had just fallen into. Without paying attention to their synchronized moves they turned to look at him.

 

“ _I almost forget about him”_ said Penny.

 

“ _Although it should be impossible, I almost forgot about him too”_ was Sheldon’s reply. Again, without noticing the way they were moving, they turned towards the door and walking into 4A, going straight to the couch and sitting down, waiting for Leonard to enter.

 

“ _He looks wary, almost frightened…_ ”asked Penny, watching Leonard go to the kitchen.

 

“Would you like something to drink?” asked Leonard from the refrigerator, from where he grabbed a bottle of water.

 

“ _I assume it’s because we’ve been unable to act normal… all this_ hyper-sensibility _it’s making it difficult for us to regain control over ourselves_ ” said Sheldon.

 

Penny then became aware of that fact, the connection between them had at some point started to feel natural, not bothering her at all, and once in the same frequency of Sheldon’s mind from the distance she hadn’t noticed that they had been acting strange in front of Leonard. Fortunately Sheldon managed somehow to pull out of that and speak normally.

 

“Leonard” he said, and Penny could feel Sheldon’s resolution behind a very strange idea “I need to talk with you.”

 

Suddenly, without Penny being prepared to receive such amount of information, in her mind appeared information of different graphics, one of those was a chart with data about her, things that Sheldon knew about her - unconsciously her mind made some changes to it – and another one with Leonard’s data, a series of questions and prepared experiments also ran through her thoughts making her feel dizzy for a moment. All the while Leonard walked towards them and sat down on his chair.

 

“ _You want to experiment on us!_ ” she almost shouted in her mind, Leonard’s reply however made her look back to him.

 

“What is it Sheldon?” he asked.

 

“I have a request to make” _Yes, can I use you two to get the results of a very weird experiment I have in mind_ was Penny’s thought, and she could almost see Sheldon rolling his eyes.

 

“What is it?” Poor Leonard, he didn’t know what he was getting himself into.

 

“ _I can assure you: is nothing dangerous._ I’ve been pondering the girl’s experiment, the other day you told me about what you had noticed while interacting with the others and since Penny and I weren’t able to ‘learn’ anything about that experience I was wondering if you would mind a little experimentation” the realization of his roommate intentions were obvious in Leonard’s change of expression.

 

“What kind of experiments? Let me tell you Sheldon that if your experiments put us in danger somehow I…” By that moment Penny had been already presented with a fresh mental image from Sheldon stating what was going to be the main activity during his experiment.

 

“Relax, Sheldon only wants us to spend some time together” she said probably resting too much importance to the situation, if Sheldon’s scowl was anything to go by. He nodded and then stared into space for a moment.

 

“ _Sheldon!_ ” she said, pulling him out of wherever he had gone.

 

“Sorry… As I was saying, I’ve been noticing the subtle changes that you mentioned in my interactions with Penny, but I need to compare it with someone else, and since you and I spend a considerable amount of time together I think I could be able to notice more if we spend time doing ordinary things” this made her curious, what kind of changes had he noticed? Was it really that important to compare them to Leonard’s?

 

“ _Why are you really doing this?_ ” she asked looking at him, while Leonard once again looked at them as if they were strangers.

 

“ _Because, the connection between him and you should be strong, not comparable to ours, especially because you were his girlfriend. I want to know how much the original experiment affected you, it could be useful_ ”

“ _Hang on. What you’re saying is that if I had been connected with Leonard when the lighting stroked, we – Leonard and me – would be having a stronger psychic connection?_ ”

“ _Telepathic. But yes, that’s what I was thinking…_ ”

“ _But…_ ” in that moment Leonard cleared his throat, making them turn to look at him again a bit ashamed.

 

“Should I leave you two alone? I kind of feel like I’m interrupting something…” said the experimental physicist rubbing the back of his head but with and obvious tinge of anger in his voice.

 

“Don’t be silly!” said Penny composing a smile for him. “ _Let me tell you something Sheldon, I don’t like people playing with_ my _feelings, so keep that in mind while you do this_ ”

 

A wave with a mixture of fear and seriousness coming from Sheldon’s mind was everything she got in response.

 

“And… what are we suppose to do? Sheldon?” said Leonard joining his hands and leaning his elbows over his knees.

 

“It’s actually something quite simple. I want us to hang out as we usually do, we can watch a movie, play games – including videogames, I want to observe and make some comparative notes to know if it actually made any difference between you and me, or you and Penny.”

 

“H-hold on. Basically what you want is to see how much the experiment improved our friendship… have you… what kind of differences have you noticed between you two?”

 

“Well, I cannot tell you for sure, I need data to compare it. After all you’re my best friend; in theory our friendship should have improved a higher percentage than my friendship with Penny. And between you two, seeing as you were once in a romantic relationship, things should have changed as well.” Leonard thought about it for a moment. Penny on the other hand was trying to understand the real purpose behind this experiment; Sheldon had felt something akin to shame while saying all that, what he had said was not completely a lie, they had noticed _huge_ difference, something that couldn’t be so easily compared, but technically the experiment should have enhanced their other relationships as well, so Sheldon’s behavior was probably more linked to what he was going to feel through his connection with her when she interacted with Leonard.

 

 This was going to be an interesting evening…

 

* * *

 

 

At first the trio stood there on the couch for a moment, Penny was starting to get used to the quiet whispers that usually came from Sheldon’s mind when there was no active communication, she silently wondered if he could hear something like that as well…

 

Leonard seemed nervous in his chair, looking from her to Sheldon as if expecting something to happen…

 

Finally Sheldon cleared his throat and straightened on the couch.

 

“As part of this experiment I would like you to tell me something you did together, preferably something you both enjoyed and that it’s within a safe rating, I don’t want to hear anything about your ‘night activities’…”

 

Leonard turned his head to one side, closing his eyes, probably not believing that Sheldon had just referred to their… ehm, sexy moments in bed. Penny immediately felt blood rush to her cheeks, partial images and a lot of warm feelings that she had experienced with Leonard coming back to life.

 

“ _I said ‘safe rating’ Penny!_ ” said Sheldon’s voice in her head, she looked at him, noticing - slightly amused - the faint blush on his cheeks.

 

“Uhm… How about that time when we… no _we ended up in bed that time_ … or maybe when we… no _gosh, was it sex the only thing we had in common a part from Sheldon?_ ”

 

“How about our first date?  Not the very first date, the 2.0 version?”

 

“Oh, yeah, that one will do, we had a very interesting and different evening that day” said Penny immediately picturing images of their date, where Leonard had introduced himself and they had then started talking in a way that was far more casual than her ex-boyfriend’s funny attempts when they first met.

 

“Yeah, or maybe that time when we went out as friends, and we ended up at that bar…” again images flood her mind with Leonard’s words; they do shared a few things after all.

 

“Sure, if I’m not mistaken, that day…  I had a nice chat with a writer… you allowed me to keep talking to him, but you were so jealous and when he left, you were making a lousy effort to talk with that woman… what was her name? Paula?” That day both had been on the rope, trying to pretend that they had already moved on…

 

“I don’t really remember... but yeah, that were really good times, remember the movie we saw earlier that same day?” asked Leonard, and an echo of his comments about her likes of romantic movies resonated in her head.

 

“Leonard, that wasn’t a movie, that was a documentary… and no, I frankly don’t remember it, I think I actually fell asleep at some point” a little town and water were really the only things she could remember about that _torture_.

 

“But you did used it to try to impress that ‘writer’” said Leonard making the quotation marks with his hands and frowning.

 

That was it, suddenly the spell was broken once again, she had tried, she had even managed to give him another chance as a friend, but the truth was that Leonard was incapable of moving over the insecurity line, he was always thinking that she would cheat on him, or leave him, or lie to him, seriously, when she was his girlfriend she had at some point decided to try it for him, to make a serious commitment to keep their relationship standing, but he couldn’t do it for her. No matter how much she proved that she had grown and was ready to move forward, Leonard had to stay in his bubble and think that every mistake, every friend she talked about, every time she had something else to do, she was somehow not being faithful to him.

 

She couldn’t remember when her friends had stopped visiting her, when her social circle had narrowed so much that she now only had Amy and Bernadette as women in her social group, and when all those funny guys had stopped inviting her to their parties… Leonard was a great guy, really, but she had already let go of many things for him that there was no much left, it angered her that he used to act the victim every time something like that happened, it wasn’t all her fault, and when she had tried to make him see that, he had feigned offense and broke up with her. It still hurt a little to see the man, but they had become part of her life and she refused the idea of letting go of them too.

 

Sheldon’s hand landed hesitantly on her shoulder, patting her slowly but silently supporting her. A warm feeling flooded her when she looked at him, it was odd how much his very simple gestures meant for her, maybe it was because she knew how difficult it was for him to express his emotions and touch people at the same time.

 

“I think that was enough, I have enough data from that little conversation of yours…”

 

“Are you sure? With so little?” asked Leonard.

 

“Yes. I still need to talk with you, we don’t have all day. Oh, and I will probably ask you to do it again in the next few days so, try to make a list of different scenarios shared with Penny that had caused you different emotions, it could be a good idea for you to do that as well Penny” said Sheldon standing up and walking towards his computer, taking a note book and making some notes in it.

 

* * *

 

 

After speaking with Leonard for a while, Sheldon made a pause and explained the next part of the experiment; he proposed they watch a movie; the three of them went for one movie they really wanted to see and then they tried to choose one, surprisingly Sheldon allowed the debate to start and made no complaints when a movie was finally chosen – which was Leonard’s by the way.

 

It was maybe because it presented a good story with enough action and romance that none of them could really complain. There was one problem though, they hadn’t mentioned it yet, but it was inevitable.

 

Every now and then Sheldon would look at them, as if taking in their expressions after one or two scenes; he then made a self check – fairly inaccurate in Penny’s opinion – of his own emotions about the movie before writing them down on his notebook.

 

And then it happened…

 

Leonard risked a glance towards his friend, watching his eyebrows rose at the sudden heated scene playing on the screen.

 

Penny suppressed a smirk by pressing her lips together and tried to keep watching the movie, though she could feel Sheldon’s struggles to ignore the moans of the couple ‘busy’ on the screen.

 

Sheldon shifted uncomfortably on his spot, he usually avoided movies with any sort of sexual content; the three of them stayed quiet during the scene which for some unexplained reason was longer than expected.

 

When the movie ended Leonard stood up, mumbling something about the bathroom. Penny on her place on the couch was leaning against the back looking at the ceiling. She sighed, distractingly ignoring Sheldon’s thoughts and mental comparisons with surprisingly good graphics of “Day one” in his experiment.

 

It hadn’t been that much time, since the last time she had… taken someone to bed. She could usually handle the problem by herself, but suddenly she was feeling the urge to look for someone… It wasn’t a good idea at all, that meant she had to know somebody, start a relationship and wait for it to get her there… Ugh, maybe it hadn’t been such a good idea to grow up and start thinking that it was better to have a serious relationship with someone, but really a one night stand just wasn’t for her anymore.

 

The next part of the experiment to end up the night was playing some videogames. To say that it had been the most interesting part of the night was not enough. Leonard and Sheldon had a very good match in pairs, and then a really tough battle against each other in Halo.

 

Of course being a natural and really good player of that game, beating Leonard wasn’t hard. They had had good communication during the pair match, and though they had been nearly beaten there they had managed to win in the last minute.

 

Playing with Sheldon was a complete different thing. Leonard had really watched them amazed in the pair match, they had tried to keep in mind that communication during those matches was crucial and Leonard needed to hear them speak, but as the game moved on their phrases became simple or very few words, making for a very instinctual game.

 

“Penny”

 

“Done!”

 

“Sheldon!”

 

“There already!”

 

The most exciting part had been the match face to face, at first… the match begun with them moving their characters on the screen to specific locations, but their thoughts kept being ‘intercepted’ by the enemy, they really tried to beat the other, trying different tactics, but failing at some of them, it was becoming the longest game they had ever played.

 

With the monotony of the fight, their thoughts focused on the strategy and the avoidance of movements that they thought the rival would use, at some point they started to mirror each other even on the screen. The end of the match was so simple that it was disappointing, a bomb thrown at certain bush at the same time, hitting its intended target and killing them both was not the way to finish a good game. It did however make them notice that they had fallen into that trance without noticing, and if Leonard hadn’t fall asleep during the last part – probably because of the boring simultaneous moves – things would have been hard to explain.

 

* * *

 

 

So by the time Penny returned home, frustrated and tired she found no trouble to fall asleep.

 

The place around her looked different than how it had been the last time she had saw it, the walls around her were now of the same height and there was a roof, the place was still a mess, but at least she could see the floor. There was something new. A window, right in front of the puff couch she was currently sitting on.

 

Through the window however there was not a sight of the outside, but a sight of the inside of another place, a room with walls filled with books, a chair, a TV screen… it was probably Sheldon’s place.

 

Curious she stood up and walked towards the window, the crystal on it was very thick; it will probably take something really heavy to break it. Sheldon wasn’t there, or at least he was no where to be seen, she whistled impressed, the man really had a good taste, the place was neat, ordered and clean, everything he could want it to be, and it also looked hi-tech.

 

She looked back to her place, wondering why she hadn’t thought of putting a TV in here.

 

_Pop!_

Well, speaking of the power of the mind, she now had a TV – and it looked a lot like the one Sheldon had in his place (she looked through the window to check, his was still there). Great, if she could add things that easily to this place, maybe it will be easier to clean it up as well… Nope, the mess on the floor was the same.

 

 _“It’s a mental representation Penny, you have to put things in order first…”_ she thought to herself.

 

Eyeing the mess and feeling lazy at the moment she walked outside. There was still no floor in that zone, and it was still difficult to convince herself that she was not going to fall by stepping outside.

 

“Sheldon?” she asked out loud expecting him to come out of his place “Sheldon, are you there?” she asked once again approaching the bubble like wall in the middle of the place that kept their minds from blending together.

 

And then she noticed, letters, numbers and graphics were appearing over the white walls of the house, from the distance it seemed like some kind of light game, producing moving shadows over the surface, well, he was the brilliant mind, this probably meant that he was still working on the experiment and that he was not going to be available to speak with her tonight in this place. Well that allowed her to dream with what she wanted…

 

Now if only she knew how to get out of this place and have a nice dream instead…

 

She entered the house again and started picking up things from the floor, placing them in different zones of the place, making some furniture appear to accommodate things in them and letting a song play around her – it was amazing she didn’t need a radio or a CD, just thinking on the song was enough for her to hear it – while she worked.

 

When she felt she had done enough for the place that night she returned to the puff and dropped herself over it. Well this was a good moment to review those scenes from the movie!

 

It was some kind of dream after all, a fantasy… And she was on _her side_ , so it won’t affect him… probably.

 

The TV turned on and started playing the movie once again, from the point where the sex scenes had started; she relaxed on the puff and allowed her hands to roam over her body, her imagination and experience providing her with some very real sensations and pictures of the handsome man in the movie touching her as the leading actress, allowing herself to be pulled in the fantasy and let go…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooo… I did mentioned somewhere that the rating could change in future chapters, its just implied and I don’t really write the whole explicit experience when it comes to mature content, so in any case if the rating actually changes it will be mild and gradual (if you’ve read ‘Not a secret…’ you know how gradual it can be – just in this one it will be a little bit faster). Please let me know what you think about it, I can always keep the story on the same track… Possibilities, possibilities… I’ll start working on the next chapter soon, until next one.


	6. Crack!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Penny did something and Sheldon is not really happy about it, but what kind of troubles could cause a little fight when you're sharing a mind?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for the delay, new job, new schedule, new exhaustion… I’ve been barely able to stop running from one place to another in my new job, which by the way I’m enjoying a lot, and that has probably made my energies to writing a little low, not my imagination because I figure out the whole chapter in a short time, but having a moment to sit down and don't feel sleepy is difficult.
> 
>  
> 
> Anyway, I might be late, but I’m not stopping. I went to see ‘Home’ the other day, and I loved it (it was in Spanish so it lacked Jim’s greatness, but kids in this country don’t speak English so I can let it go for now), I know my stories are not wonders but the people and things that inspire me are. So, feeling inspired and hoping that you like this new chapter, I leave you to it, enjoy it.

6.- Crack!

It was like a buzzing.

A million bees buzzing around her, the feeling of annoyance, shame, disgust and disappointment had been surrounding her all morning. Penny didn’t want to feel guilty about that, but of course she was the one sharing a mind with Mr. Homo Novus. She should have expected it, really.

 

She hadn’t even seen him today! He was supposed to be at work or something… (Hadn’t he been granted some vacation days?), but he wasn’t or she shouldn’t be able to feel his annoyance at something she… ok, maybe it hadn’t been a great idea, but what was she supposed to do? It wasn’t her fault that they were connected that way! She wasn’t at all happy either with following his schedule, she wanted to sleep longer, go to the bathroom when she needed to, and many other things and not being stuck doing things that she never imagined him doing (really, morning ‘vocal test’?).

All in all, it was clear that this was going to be a very difficult day. Fortunately, she had the evening shift that day and that meant that their chances of seeing ea ch other that day were very little… If only things were that simple.

She managed to ignore the sensation for a good while, the different things and all the people she had to deal with were an amazing help, but the buzzing continued, making her feel confused a few times and giving her a little headache that grew with the hours of the day, in which some other things started to happen, like at some point when she could have swore that someone was singing a number’s song, how weird.

It had been useful when she needed to mention numbers; she had even enjoyed singing with it when she was driving. A little later some other data started to appear in her mind and then she understood Sheldon’s tactic. He was trying to drive her mad with maths… Well, it wasn't going to work, she h ad had years of dealing with him, her experience had taught her that she could manage a long conversation about sciency stuff without problem, this wasn't different.

 

Only, it really was different, during the weird days when Leonard, Raj, Howard, and Sheldon bored her with a completely nonsensical and long conversation about science or something else, she had survived distracting herself in her own mind, thinking about something else, daydreaming about handsome actors, wondering what shoes she should buy with her next pay, even trying to guess the latest combination of the WiFi password of their apartment…

 

But now she couldn't do that, numbers, images, graphics, calculations and many different things that she had never heard of before were appearing one by one explained in full detail in her mind, it was giving her a headache.

 

She regretted the moment when a difficult word passed through her thoughts and made her mentally exclaim ‘what?’, because that had led to the very definition of the word, from the root etymologies of it, to the right pronunciation and then to it’s common use… This was going to drive her crazy!

Annoyed, and about to go all junior rodeo on the very first person that dared walk in front of her, she stomped upstairs to her apartment, stopping in the little space that separated her from her neighbors breathing heavily. She looked once to her door, and then to theirs, trying to decide if she should try to calm down before talking with Sheldon or if she should murder him and find a way to made it look like an accident before Leonard could notice…

“I have the police department on speed dial; you wouldn’t be able to escape…”

That was it! He was so going to die!

“Allow me to remind you Penny, that I had to suffer your whole…’episode’ last night, and though it really was obnoxious it never occurred to me that the right solution was killing you.”

Penny looked at the door with her eyes wide open, feeling offended and angry, she dropped her bag to the floor and faced the door, if somebody were to walk past her right this moment it would be weird to see her in that state…

 

“You’re kidding! You were trying to kill me out of boredom and a damn headache! What you did was upsetting, offending and wrong…”

“That’s exactly the way I felt. You can say we’re even now Penny… just don’t do it again. Please!”

She kept glaring with hatred at the door, she could sense his presence on the other side, but right now she wasn’t in the mood to face him… hell, she wasn't even in the mood to think through what she wanted to say, everything in her head right now was anger.

 

“Well I’m sorry Sheldon, but what I did was because I’m a human being with needs, natural… instinctual needs, I enjoy my nature, unlike you. You can pretend all you want, but if you were a normal person you wouldn’t have to struggle to keep yourself in control or have to lie to all of us when you experience it. I know you would love to be an emotionless robot to avoid all this stuff, but I’m really sorry, like it or not you’re like everyone else. You’re just angry because it made you react; stop acting like a child you could’ve talked to me instead of sending to my mind all that… information.”

A wave of deep offense flooded her, anger and to her surprise embarrassment, she could almost tell that he was also standing on the other side of the door, probably in the same defensive position that she had that very moment.

"I… let me tell you something, Penny. I’ve never been treated like everybody else in my entire life, I’ve had to learn and get used to everything all by myself. Let me remind you that I was already in college when I reached puberty, it wasn’t easy then, and it isn’t easy now. So forgive me if I didn’t talk to you about it, I surely don’t remember you coming and telling me something to prepare myself for the sudden flash of images and emotions that came from your mind last night, and for the record what I showed you was completely safe and valuable information, not just a fantasy created to fulfill your need to procreate! So don't tell me I'm being childish when clearly you're reaction is more child-like than mine."

 

Penny growled out loud with anger, stomping a foot on the floor, before turning around, kicking her bag towards her door before entering and closing it behind her, without even paying attention to Amy and Leonard that had been just a few steps down on the stairs looking confused at her.

Ooooo

“What was that?” asked Amy worried, Penny’s behavior moments ago was making her wonder what had made the blonde so angry.

“I don’t know. But I have never seen her acting like that… though it could be Sheldon’s fault, she was glaring quite menacingly at the door” Leonard considered that a good moment to climb up the few steps going to his apartment, pulling his keys out of his pocket and opening the door.

Amy seemed to consider going to Penny’s apartment, Leonard and her had coincided downstairs, and the brunette’s plan was originally to visit her ‘besty’ but right now it didn’t seem to be the best idea, so, with a last glance at Penny's door she moved and entered behind Leonard. 

Just by entering she knew something was wrong. Sheldon was sulking in his spot, that wasn’t such a strange behavior considering that the man tended to get in a mood every time something happened differently than what he had planned, but this was different, he seemed tense, his arms crossed over his chest, his hands closed into tight fists and his eyes closed. It was so weird to see him like that.

 

“Sheldon, are you alright?” asked Leonard as soon as he left his bag over his chair.

“I’m fine. I’m just trying not to think…” Leonard raised his eyebrows, a skeptic smile appearing on his face.

“I suppose that’s quite hard to achieve… especially with a brain like yours”

“You don’t know the half of it…” said Sheldon relaxing a bit and running his hands over his head instead, leaving some of his hair out of place, something that gave him a funny look.

“And can we know what kind of spectacular discovery has you in distress right now?” asked Leonard sitting down on his chair and looking at his roommate.

Sheldon glared at Leonard, and for some reason that made Amy smile a little, he was such an amazing character.

"Is not a huge discovery… more like a battle of wills against your beloved neighbor…" after saying that Sheldon made a face as if in pain, but he controlled himself quickly. "Excuse me…" he said standing up and walking towards his bedroom with his fists hanging at his sides.

 

“Seems like they’re at it again…” sighed Leonard.

“What do you mean?” asked Amy approaching the couch this time and sitting down.

“You know ‘The epic battles of Sheldon and Penny’. Is something like a tradition, every certain amount of time (a month or two) they find something in which Penny has an opinion completely opposite to Sheldon’s and neither of them back out, they fight over it for weeks. Sometimes it’s just words and insults, but there had been prank wars that had affected us too.”

“And you’re not worried?” asked Amy, wondering why she hadn’t yet witnessed one of those.

"Of course not," said Leonard waving a hand in dismissal "they fight, but at some point something happens and prove them both either right or wrong and they end up being closer than before. Is something just between them, their relationship has always made them compete, but they've never stopped being friends"

 

Amy considered what Leonard had just said, she had been spending a lot of time trying to recreate the accident in her lab without much success. Well, she had actually managed to recreate it, but the results were very little, maybe because monkeys weren’t really good at staying calm after being lightly shocked with electricity. There was something though that had called her attention, and it was certain neurological waves that tended to appear in the scanner that seemed identical from one subject to another, it was really hard to tell if they were, because it happened just in weird moments.

However, if Sheldon and Penny had somehow gained a deeper connection with the years, maybe she should try with a ‘couple’ of monkeys, probably one kept together for a few years, that could simulate a more accurate scenario allowing her to get different results. Yeah, that was a good idea.

Ooooo

That night however when Sheldon opened his eyes to find himself in the living room of his mind he couldn’t help but frown at the window that had appeared on the wall, allowing him to see a part of Penny’s house from there.

He cursed the fact that he had nothing he could use to cover it - at least he hadn’t thought of something yet. But his curiosity made him walk towards it and take a look at the other side. Penny had been putting things in order, as far as he could see; there was now a TV in there and more furniture.

 

He was looking at the things that still covered the floor when Penny’s face appeared in front of him making an awful gesture, it made him jump, his heart now beating fast because of the surprise.

Penny laughed on the other side of the window, he could see her – with the appropriate frown on his face – but he couldn’t hear her. Suddenly the TV behind him turned itself on, startling him again, but this time he could hear Penny’s voice.

“... ah, that was so funny… even in dreams he has the funniest reactions… ah, god, too bad nobody else can see it” the blonde wiped tears from her eyes, a wide smirk on her face when she turned to see him.

Sheldon crossed his arms in front of him, his expression still serious. Penny made some more funny faces and some weird noises, the scientist only shook his head in exasperation.

“And yet… your point was that I was acting like a child. Seems like I’m not the only one with funny expressions…” he said amused when Penny jumped this time when the TV turned on behind her.

“Ok, maybe I was being childish, but you still had no right to invade my thoughts," she said putting her hands on her hips.

 

“I could say the same to you, but apparently it’s me who has to ask for permission first” he said moving his head and raising an eyebrow in the same way he did whenever she said something wrong.

“Oh, get over it! It wasn’t that bad, you’re just exaggerating!”

“Exaggerating?! … Penny” he said shaking his head “we’ve known each other for many years and I know you’re a promiscuous woman that’s been driven her whole life by her baser urges. However, you also know that I have never been comfortable in situations such as the one we…”

“Shut up Sheldon!” said Penny hitting the glass that separated them with her fist. “It’s not my fault that our minds are connected like this, if, as you say, you’ve known about my ‘promiscuity’ for many years then you should have known it was going to happen eventually…”

“Oh, I knew it was going to happen, I just thought that since you are my friend you would be respectful at least during the first week of this…” he gestured at his surroundings, not knowing how to qualify it.

“So, all of this is about respect! Let me tell you something Sheldon Cooper, you are everything but respectful, you tend to say hurtful things all the time, insulting my intelligence and dismissing the things I do whenever you can – and not only with me – and I let it go, I say nothing because you just don’t seem to understand that it’s wrong… So don’t tell me that I insulted you with a single erotic fantasy because that doesn't even cover all the times you have insulted me!"

 

They glared at each other for a moment, before Sheldon finally found his voice again and stepped closer to the window in front of them.

“If things… if things were the other way round you wouldn't forgive me, Penny!"

 

"Oh, really?" she asked placing both hands on her hips with an incredulous look on her face. She took a deep breath and changed her expression to an angry one "Well imagine that you were connected with Amy's mind instead of mine, I'm sure that by now her mind would have already taken over yours and you will be doing all sorts of things with her right now"

 

"You shall not speak about Amy like that!" he said feeling anger bubbling inside him at the mention of his girlfriend . 

“Sheldon you know as well as I do that my mind is safer than Amy’s…”

“At least Amy and I share more things in common, I’m sure she would be respectful enough of my mind and wishes, she had been for a long time…”

"And how much longer do you think she's going to stand it? You're a lousy boyfriend, selfish and close-minded!"

 

“Close minded!?”

“Yes, you try to deny it all you want, but you’re worst a religious fanatic than your mother…”

“Don’t bring my mother into this!”

“But you are! Poor Sheldon Untouchable Cooper, I don’t know how you cope knowing that you’re stuck being human for the rest of your life…”

“Silence!”

"Are you afraid of getting addicted to the pleasures of the flesh? Or maybe you fear that you will lose your focus on science once you start with it?"

 

“Shut up!”

Just then a cracking noise was heard outside, Sheldon and Penny looked at each other before quickly walking outside.

“This can’t be happening!” said Sheldon looking up at the bubble like wall that divided their minds, where a crack could be seen at the very top, a thin and single white line…

"That can't be good," said Penny on the other side. She then looked down at him and frowned “… and it’s all your fault!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now, wish me luck, I have to endure another week of working hard and find time to write as well, I’m starting to think that the girl in HR hates me… with such horrible schedules! The good news is that I’ll be able to buy a new computer soon, so that’s my motive. Until next chapter!


End file.
